Hello all! First-time poster here. I finished Dune over the weekend, and man, like many before me and probably many after, I’ve become an enthusiast. I was about 1/4 into the book before I watched the latest movies. I thought both films were excellent, but needless to say, I was stunned when I finished the story. The amount of things Denis Villeneuve, the film’s director, changed and left out was quite jarring. Dune is highly dense, and fitting the entire narrative into a two-part movie is unrealistic, but wow, the Mentat was reduced to nearly nothing, as were Thufir and Piter. Also, in the book, Chani is intelligent, wise, loyal, and understanding; on-screen, she is mostly angry and distrustful. Then there’s Paul’s son and Alia, probably the most significant changes. It feels like the movies and the book are in an alternate universe with their central themes intact. I actually think they both work really well. For those that read the first book and watched the Villeneuve movies, what do you think?
by N-CHOPS
1 Comment
I think there was never enough actual plot in the first book.
It’s world building done extremely well, but it always felt like the set up for a really good series – except loads of the interesting characters are killed off early on, the conflict is effectively solved very early on (as certain abilities of certain groups make the success of the protagonists a foregone conclusion), and the setting is utterly changed by the end of the book.
I felt the same way about Scar Night, the Deepgate Codex first book that set up a brilliant series only to ensure by the end that nothing like that book could occur in that milieu again.